[Inhofe goes to climate conferences] to be "a one-man truth squad." He slithered in and out of the cavernous media filing center, ever at the ready to speak to reporters looking for the other side quotes denigrating the proceedings, claiming that climate change was no more than a hoax, and celebrating the summit's failure to produce a binding and comprehensive treaty.

Inhofe was usually mobbed by reporters—especially non-American journalists who found it newsworthy that a US senator would say such things. Judging from the smile on his mug, Inhofe enjoyed skunking up the party. After watching this for a few days, I could not resist the urge to engage.

As he strolled through the media center one afternoon, accompanied by several camera crews recording his pronouncements, I approached and politely asked if I could put a question to him. Sure, he said, in his folksy, avuncular manner.

Look around us, I said, spreading my arms wide. There are thousands of intelligent and well-meaning people in this gigantic conference center: scientists, heads of state, government officials, policy experts. They believe that climate change is a serious and pressing threat and that something must be done soon. Do you believe that they have all been fooled?

Yes, he said, grinning.

That these people who have traveled from all points of the globe to be here are victims of a well-orchestrated hoax?

Yes, he said, still smiling.

That's some hoax, I countered. But who has engineered such a scam?

Hollywood liberals and extreme environmentalists, Inhofe replied.

Really? I asked. Why would they conspire to scare all these smart people into believing a catastrophe was under way, when all was well?

I nearly laughed. All these people had assembled in Copenhagen because of Barbra Streisand. A singer and actor had perpetuated the grandest con of the past 100 years?

That's right, Inhofe said, with a straight face. And others, he added.

By this point, he was losing patience and glancing about for another reporter who wanted to record his important observations. And I was running out of follow-up queries. After all, was I really going to ask, "And Ed Begley Jr. too?" So our conversation ended, and I headed back to reality.

But I was struck by this thought: Did this senator truly believe Barbra Streisand was the devious force behind a completely phony global campaign to address climate change? He seemed to.

In his 2012 book, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, Inhofe does mention Streisand—but only once, lumping her together with Leonardo DiCaprio and John Travolta as celebs whose environmental "alarmism" had to be debunked. But his book did not shy away from clearly identifying the charlatans and hoaxers who have hornswoggled the planet: "environmental activist extremists," Al Gore, MoveOn.org, George Soros, Michael Moore, and, yes, "the Hollywood elites."

Perhaps when Inhofe seizes the reins of the Senate environment committee, he can further expose this conspiracy—and for the first witness … Barbra Streisand. It's time for her to come clean.

"These newly described ultra-small bacteria are an example of a subset of the microbial life on earth that we know almost nothing about," said the co-corresponding author of the research, Jill Banfield, a senior faculty scientist in the earth sciences division of Berkeley Lab.

The diverse microbes are discovered in groundwater and are believed to be rather common. They are the smallest a cell can be but still harbor sufficient material to sustain life.

“They're enigmatic. These bacteria are detected in many environments and they probably play important roles in microbial communities and ecosystems. But we don't yet fully understand what these ultra-small bacteria do," said Banfield.

Now that humans have discovered them, their future will be altered (probably weaponized or used to make money) and not for the better (for them). All we do is destroy stuff.

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